This blog post is a part of the I Heart EdTech Blog Swap brought to you by SimpleK12.com. Guest Blogger Kim Munoz (@techmunoz) shares her experiences in the world of web 2.0 tools. She is a very resourceful and knowledgeable Ed Tech Specialist who has some wonderful ideas and lessons that can easily be implemented into anyone's curriculum.
Web 2.0 tools are engaging and fun for students! Many of the tools below connect students to the world by allowing them to post, link and embed projects they have completed in class, as well as comment on other projects to provide feedback. The whole world can be invited to see and comment on student work. The audience doesn’t have to be just the teacher or the classroom anymore. It can be mom’s and dad’s, grandma’s and cousin’s, as well as a classroom in England or Spain. The possibilities for connecting are endless.
So what activities can I do in class that can get my students sharing and collaborating? Well, here is a list of some activities I have successfully tried in my middle school classroom.
1. http://www.animoto.com/: Things I Like Project
The students signed up for a free account on Animoto and made a 30 second movie with pictures and words of things they liked. They used Animoto’s pictures and video clips, as well as some pictures from the internet. My 8th graders that have a blog, embedded the video to showcase their work, and the other classes presented their videos in class. I posted a link to my blog on twitter, inviting anyone to check out my student’s blogs and leave comments on their project posts. Instructions on how embed videos in a blog are located here: http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/2009/09/25/teaching-animoto-and-embedding-in-blogs/
Other project ideas: MATH—have students take concepts and make a movie describing it using visuals they find online or pictures they take of real world items relating to the concept. Language Arts—Character Analysis
2. http://www.coveritlive.com/:
Live Blogging Activities—Great for engaging while watching movies, videos or any visual presentation.
How it works: The only thing you need to get started is a free account on Cover It Live, and a blog to embed the code to the live blogging event. You can check out this site as an example to see some examples. http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/live-blogging-events/
Activity: I had my students Live Blog during President Obama’s speech to students in the Fall of ’09. They were able to interact with each other’s thoughts as the speech was happening. Here is the site where the activity took place: http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/2009/09/07/obamas-speech/ If I had sent out the link to the blog activity on Twitter, or to my school faculty members, others could have joined the conversation. Later in the semester 3 classrooms interacted with each other while watching the same video from an author, but in their individual classrooms. This allowed student interaction without having to move students or manage a larger number of people.
3. Student Blogs: http://www.edublogs.org/
I set up a blog for each student in my 8th grade classes using edublogs.org. It is a free blog site, but I paid the $15 every 3 months to have some of the extra features the students loved. Their blog served as an online journal, but also as a portfolio of their work. Any video created, artwork or class work the students wanted to showcase, could all be documented on their blog. I would take pictures of art projects or of the students working hard, to give them pictures to post. However, many Web 2.0 sites that allow you to create on them, also gives you an embed code to publish your work. Here is a great example of one of my student’s blogs. http://zoeyc1.edublogs.org/
4. http://www.artsonia.com/—House Project and Fundraiser
My students learn how to use the drawing toolbar in MS Word by drawing a House. When they have completed the project, I teach them how to save it as a picture (.jpeg), then I upload it to Artsonia.com. This site is an online art museum for kids up to 18 years old. They can share their artwork with the world as well as enjoy many other features of the site, such as the gift shop. Anyone can purchase an object, like a t-shirt or apron, with their child’s artwork on it. 15% of all sales go back to the school, so this site can serve as a great fundraising tool as well! Each student has their own URL that takes family, friends and teachers directly to their work where they can join their fan club. Students love to go back to their art page to see how many visitors they’ve received and how many people have signed up for their fan club. Fan Club members receive updates when new artwork is posted to the student’s site. All a teacher has to do to get started is sign up for a free school account and you can start publishing work immediately!
There are so many more projects we have done this year that engaged students and gave them a product they were proud to show off. If you would like to see more ideas like these, come visit my teacher blog at http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/
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